Ceramics

This page is full of ideas, artists, and media that interest today's youth and be of use to someone teaching themselves about ceramics or a teacher looking for some new ideas. So browse, learn, borrow ideas, and always let us know about your experience with the materials we provide!

The photograph shows a Chinese sancai sherd from the 9th to 10th century found in Samarra. Credit: PHGCOM.

Theoretical ceramics

Main resources: Chemicals/Materials/Ceramics and Ceramics

Def. any nonmetallic solid that remains hard when heated is called a ceramic.

The term ceramics refers to clay that has been fired to a temperature causing irreversible changes to the clay body that generally make the material more durable and less porous. Ceramics is thought to be one of the first technologies in human development, and persists to this day.

Ceramic materials have been in use as utilitarian objects from the start, and that legacy continues. The inherent insulating properties in ceramic material have led to its use in everything from the space shuttles to cell phones.

Ceramic Process

The typical life cycle of a ceramic object consists of shaping clay into a form (called the greenware stage), allowing it to dry (called the bone dry stage), and firing it up to a temperature appropriate to the clay body being used (it is then called bisqueware). A second firing may take place after bisque firing to fix a glaze onto the piece, although there are some techniques that do not require this firing or combine both the bisque and glaze firings into a single firing.

Lesson Plan Ideas

• Hard Slab Construction
• Self-Portrait Relief Sculpture
• Animals

Step-by-Step Processes

• Creating a Hard Slab
• Creating A Relief Sculpture

Cool Practicing Artists

• Mosaic Artist

Ceramics is part of the Division of Craft Arts in the Division of Fine Arts

External links

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